News
On the occasion of the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, Sundeep Waslekar, the President of Strategic Foresight Group (SFG) was invited to deliver a public lecture on “Gandhi, Einstein and Prospects of Peace in the 21st Century”. The lecture was hosted under the auspices of The Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict (CRIC). It coincided with the annual scientific conference of CRIC.
In this lecture, Sundeep Waslekar made the following key points:
- Mahatma Gandhi and Albert Einstein were opposed to the very concept of war and weapons. Gandhi’s opposition to war had its origin in his philosophy of non-violence. Einstein initially supported the making of a nuclear bomb by the United States to prevent Hitler from dominating the world. However, once the nuclear bomb was used in Japan, Einstein turned not only against nuclear weapons but also the very idea of war.
- Gandhi and Einstein opposed the conduct of international relations on the basis of dominance by some powers.
The discussions in the CRIC scientific conference explained the psychology of extremism, ultra-nationalism and war mongering. One observation made was about the trauma faced by some societies through several generations giving rise to a desire for revenge. Some experts explained the phenomenon of devoted believers who are ready to die and kill because of their emotional investment in some ideas.
The CRIC conference also hosted a high level panel on ‘Water in Violent Conflict Zones’, which was conceived and moderated by SFG. The speakers included:
- Kabine Komara, former Prime Minister of Guinea
- Yaşar Yakış, former Foreign Minister of Turkey
- Walid Saleh, senior official of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization
- Sergey Koshman, civil society leader from Ukraine
